Barriss Offee – Everything You Need to Know Before ‘Tales of The Empire’
Barriss Offee is finally making her long-awaited return to Star Wars storytelling after a 10-year absence, as the star of the upcoming Tales of the Empire animated mini-series. It’s been a while since we’ve last seen in her anything significant, so for those who don’t quite remember her or haven’t seen The Clone Wars animated series at all, don’t worry. We’ve got you covered.
Like the recently returned Asajj Ventress, Barriss Offee got her start in Legends material. The Mirialan Jedi was created for the novel The Approaching Storm, written by Alan Dean Foster as a tie-in to Attack of The Clones. In that story, Barriss and her Mirialan master Luminara Unduli work with Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi to resolve a border dispute on Ansion. This event is technically canon, as it was referenced by Mace Windu in Attack of the Clones, though the details are cloudy due to that story’s Legends status.
She was nearly killed off at two separate points in the prequel era, but George Lucas and Dave Filoni took a shine to the character and left opportunities for her story to continue.
Attack of The Clones
Some people do not realize that Barriss Offee has already had her live-action debut — in fact, it came before her animated appearances. Barriss Offee has multiple appearances in Attack of the Clones, though she doesn’t have any lines of dialogue. The first comes in Chancellor Palpatine’s office at the beginning of the film, when that “border dispute on Ansion” is first mentioned. Barriss stands at the back alongside her master Luminara, while Yoda, Windu, and Ki-Adi Mundi confer with the Chancellor.
She later appears in the Battle of Geonosis, fighting alongside her master as they travel with hundreds of Jedi to rescue Anakin, Obi-Wan and Padmé.
Animation debut
Barriss Offee didn’t really become known to most fans until her debut in season 2 of The Clone Wars animated series. She first appeared in the Second Battle of Geonosis, the beginning of a three-episode arc which paired her up with Ahsoka Tano. Barriss was painted as a much more traditional Jedi padawan than Ahsoka, obeying her master Luminara’s every order without question, while Ahsoka frequently argued with Anakin.
The two Padawans ended up trapped underground and isolated from their masters — Luminara was relaxed about the prospect of losing her Padawan, while Anakin did everything he could to save Ahsoka — Barriss was resigned to her death in service of the Order, while Ahsoka fought to survive. They ended up destroying a Geonosian droid and weapons factory, with Barriss choosing to prioritize Ahsoka’s life over their mission, a bit of personal growth for her.
Things got a bit rough for Barriss from here though, as she became possessed by a Geonosian brain worm and effectively became part of a zombie hive mind. She chased Ahsoka around a cramped ship, in which they were the only Jedi aboard. At one point, Barriss begged Ahsoka to kill her in a brief moment of consciousness, but her friend managed to find a way to extract the worm from her body and kill it.
She was also glimpsed later in season 2 as a witness to Jedi Master Eeth Koth’s torture at the hands of General Grievous, was seen attending Obi-Wan Kenobi’s sham funeral and participated early on in The Battle of Umbara in season 4, fighting alongside Ahsoka. The pair were shown to have become good friends and would spar together later in the series. Even though Barriss had witnessed and experienced many horrific things during the Clone Wars, she still strove to remain a traditional Jedi, often chastizing Ahsoka for her non-traditional methods.
Fall to the dark side
By the fifth season of The Clone Wars — which mostly covered the final year of the war — Barriss had become a Jedi Knight in her own right. However, her opinion of the Jedi had become distorted over the course of the war as she’d witnessed so much cruelty and pain both from the enemy and the Jedi themselves. She came to the conclusion that the Jedi had lost their way and it seems this crisis of faith precipitated her fall to the dark side of the Force.
She decided to make a statement against the Jedi Order, working with a civilian to bomb a hangar bay in the Jedi Temple. This act of terrorism killed multiple Jedi, clone troopers, and civilians. Barriss kept her role in the bombing secret, opting instead to frame it on Ahsoka by Force-choking her civilian accomplice from afar while she was being interrogated by the Padawan.
Her plan was successful. Barriss pretended to help Ahsoka solve the mystery by giving her false leads, eventually planting enough evidence to frame the padawan that she was branded a fugitive from the Republic. When she saw that Asajj Ventress had partnered with Tano in her investigation, she attacked the former-Sith-acolyte-turned-bounty-hunter and took her outfit and lightsabers, disguising herself as Ventress to drive a wedge between the unlikely duo.
It’s unclear why Barriss framed her closest friend specifically, but perhaps she felt Ahsoka was a symbol of what the Jedi had become in her mind. Ahsoka was a good person, but trained as a warrior first and peacekeeper second, opposite to everything the Jedi stood for. Her unorthodox and non-traditional methods in conflict evoked her equally non-traditional master, who had become the poster boy for the Jedi Order, so maybe Barriss thought framing her would make the Jedi realize how far they had fallen and convince them to withdraw from the war entirely.
Eventually, Anakin Skywalker discovered that Barriss had been behind the bombing all along and the pair fought, with Barriss opting to use Ventress’ red blades instead of her own blue saber. She remarked that the color “suited” her, making it clear that she had fallen to the dark side. Anakin won the fight and Barriss was imprisoned.
What next?
Until Tales of the Empire, this was the last time we saw Barriss in canon (excluding an appearance in Yoda’s Force vision in an episode of The Clone Wars‘ sixth season). She was originally supposed to be killed off instead of imprisoned in The Clone Wars‘ season 5 finale, but Dave Filoni intervened as he had plans in mind for the character. It’s possible he intended to bring her back in the same series, but any such plans would have been wrecked when the show was temporarily cancelled.
Legends material offered no hints as to where her character might go. George Lucas originally included her in the Order 66 montage in Revenge of the Sith, but her death scene was cut. It was included in comics though, so in Legends the character never survived the Clone Wars.
Some fans theorized that the Seventh Sister in Star Wars Rebels was in fact an adult Barriss Offee, as the character was also a Mirialan and becoming an Inquisitor was a logical next step for Barriss, but Filoni shot down that idea. Of course, Tales of the Empire shows us that Barriss did indeed become an Inquisitor, at least for a brief time.
Given the Inquisitors have been around for 10 years at this point, it’s unclear why we haven’t seen Barriss as a member of the Inquisitorius until now. Dave Filoni clearly has a specific story in mind for her that couldn’t be told in Star Wars Rebels or The Bad Batch, the latter of which features no Inquisitors.
Perhaps by the end of Tales of the Empire, we will see Barriss leave the Inquisitorius before the events of Star Wars Rebels, leaving the door open for her to star in more stories down the line.
Josh is a huge Star Wars fan, who has spent far too much time wondering if any Star Wars character could defeat Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.
